You forgot Austrialia last year, bringing him for tyres when they was okay and everyone watching know it was wrong

Do mean 2010 or 2011 . I guess its 2010 because that was the most blatent call to keep him off buttons back . Half of you Button fans make me laugh cant you see Mclaren are pulling the strings to have Button as the number 1 . Its so obvious that pluto can see it . People are jumping on the Button bandwagon now ,its falling into place like a puzzle what Mclaren are attempting to pull off . They want Button to bring home the title and Lewis to bring home the WCC

Do mean 2010 or 2011 . I guess its 2010 because that was the most blatent call to keep him off buttons back . Half of you Button fans make me laugh cant you see Mclaren are pulling the strings to have Button as the number 1 . Its so obvious that pluto can see it . People are jumping on the Button bandwagon now ,its falling into place like a puzzle what Mclaren are attempting to pull off . They want Button to bring home the title and Lewis to bring home the WCC

Frankly, that's a stupid thing to say.

McLaren would be glad of a championship no matter who brings it home. There's no way that they'd deliberately disadvantage one driver in favour of another -particularly in the first race of the season - there's just NO point.

. I guess its 2010 because that was the most blatent call to keep him off buttons back . Half of you Button fans make me laugh cant you see Mclaren are pulling the strings to have Button as the number 1 . Its so obvious that pluto can see it . People are jumping on the Button bandwagon now ,its falling into place like a puzzle what Mclaren are attempting to pull off . They want Button to bring home the title and Lewis to bring home the WCC

I just want to read your suggestion for a better system, rather than how crap it was today.

My suggestion would be this, if the guy running 2nd is struggling with his tires and clearly losing time not just to his teammate but the rest of the pack, and the lead driver is not pitting, let him pit.

i.e. if him pitting early is not a strategy to jump the leading driver but to hold position from the other drivers.

Be it JB or Lewis... I dont remember them holding up JB until Lewis pitted in races like Malaysia 2010 when he was struggling with tires.

Had they been running neck and neck with other cars, Lewis would have lost a mad number of positions.

This is not the first time, same strategy put Lewis down to 7th of so after his first pitstop in China. It especially disadvantages him cos he seems to generally uses up more of his tires early in the stint as we have all seen.

But like I said in other threads, main thing was Lewis lack of race pace. This looks likely down to race setup and running less wing than JB. He never had JB's pace throughout.

So while better strategy would have got him 2nd. Even a better start would probably not have stopped JB today.

Nah, you escalated this. Let's just see who is right at the end of the season.

Good grief. How could you show you were right and I was wrong, even if they did exactly what you 'know' they're going to?I've said it's just one possibility. How does them doing it prove me wrong?On second thoughts, never mind.

Do mean 2010 or 2011 . I guess its 2010 because that was the most blatent call to keep him off buttons back . Half of you Button fans make me laugh cant you see Mclaren are pulling the strings to have Button as the number 1 . Its so obvious that pluto can see it . People are jumping on the Button bandwagon now ,its falling into place like a puzzle what Mclaren are attempting to pull off . They want Button to bring home the title and Lewis to bring home the WCC

Did you watch the race? in the first 3 laps Jenson pulled a 3 second lead, he was just the faster driver today and no amount of nut job conspiracy theories will change that. IMO even if Hamilton had taken T1 in the lead, JB would have still beaten him.

It was luck and luck alone that turned 2nd into 3rd. Everything else is clutching at straws. The team know how long they need the tyres to last, and quite frankly, so do the drivers. If any driver has ad-hoc extra tyre stops it will screw the whole race - if he couldn't get the life out of that set, how is he going to make up the defecit later in the race?

Lewis has his hands full with Jenson and is unlikely to beat him this year or ever sadly.

The great F1 drivers of days gone by were the ones that were able to adapt to the myriad of changes and tweeks that is F1. There are no excuses. Period. Jenson took his medicine in 2010 and has learned from the exerience - he is faster in quali, first few laps on full tanks and the race in general - he has adapted. If Lewis can't, instead choosing to use defeatist language like he doesn't understand why he was slow - Jenson will eat him for breakfast.

I'm just glad I didn't fork out for Sky as it seems 2012 is going to be a tough year for us Lew Ham fans

McLaren would be glad of a championship no matter who brings it home. There's no way that they'd deliberately disadvantage one driver in favour of another -particularly in the first race of the season - there's just NO point.

Not really , the point is as someone put it a few comments earlier on this thread (coral) . Button suits the whole PR of what Mclaren is about Its the perfect match between man and business just like Alonso and Ferrari. With Lewis its quite the opposite He has burnt bridges with Mclaren they dont want someone who is emotional and talks with there heart who is inconsistant on track and off it . Thats like going to a therapy clinic , NO way do mclaren want that image to relate to them. Now Mr Alonso was these things and what happened to him . Ummmmm oh yea he buggered off

I think Lewis needs to work on how he handles defeat and disappointment. It had a big impact on his year last season and if he isn't careful that is going to run into this season too. And he is going up against a very strong opponent in Button, not just on the track but perhaps more so off the track. It shouldn't be under estimated how much the team values positive thinking, and right now Jenson is singing all the right tunes while Lewis is already talking about having to "refocus" after one race. Not a good sign. Jenson is on it, both on and off the track.

I'm not saying Lewis should be smiling and dancing after a disappointing result, but just accept what happened, be honest about it, address it, and move on. Don't take the "I don't know" approach when asked what went wrong. It's passive aggressive and it will do him no favours.

Good grief. How could you show you were right and I was wrong, even if they did exactly what you 'know' they're going to?I've said it's just one possibility. How does them doing it prove me wrong?On second thoughts, never mind.

Just one thing. I said:

If Jenson and Lewis look like being the main contenders for the WDC (which seems possible), this could become a headache. They will have to compete as if they are not team-mates, with independent strategies, no communication and no strings being pulled at the higher levels within the team. Each driver should pit whenever he wants, with the lead driver in each race standing to benefit only in any stacking situation.

You are making out that I am claiming to be able to "know" the future because of this! It is clearly an opinion.

I think Lewis needs to work on how he handles defeat and disappointment. It had a big impact on his year last season and if he isn't careful that is going to run into this season too. And he is going up against a very strong opponent in Button, not just on the track but perhaps more so off the track. It shouldn't be under estimated how much the team values positive thinking, and right now Jenson is singing all the right tunes while Lewis is already talking about having to "refocus" after one race. Not a good sign. Jenson is on it, both on and off the track.

I'm not saying Lewis should be smiling and dancing after a disappointing result, but just accept what happened, be honest about it, address it, and move on. Don't take the "I don't know" approach when asked what went wrong.

What if he doesn't know?

Sounds like Button had a stormer so congratulations to him. Hamilton's lack of pace is strange, especially if he fell behind Button so quickly, as sign it wasn't about him struggling with the tyres but was just slower than his team mate full stop today?

My suggestion would be this, if the guy running 2nd is struggling with his tires and clearly losing time not just to his teammate but the rest of the pack, and the lead driver is not pitting, let him pit.

i.e. if him pitting early is not a strategy to jump the leading driver but to hold position from the other drivers.

Be it JB or Lewis... I dont remember them holding up JB until Lewis pitted in races like Malaysia 2010 when he was struggling with tires.

Had they been running neck and neck with other cars, Lewis would have lost a mad number of positions.

This is not the first time, same strategy put Lewis down to 7th of so after his first pitstop in China. It especially disadvantages him cos he seems to generally uses up more of his tires early in the stint as we have all seen.

But like I said in other threads, main thing was Lewis lack of race pace. This looks likely down to race setup and running less wing than JB. He never had JB's pace throughout.

So while better strategy would have got him 2nd. Even a better start would probably not have stopped JB today.

If the number 2 (on track) driver isn't a threat to the number 1 then that would make perfect sense.I think it's more difficult if there is a potential threat though. The gap today was 3.5 seconds when Lewis might have chosen to pit. How close do they have to be before the second driver doesn't get to choose? Or should it not matter?As long as they're consistent - so both drivers feel the system is fair - they can go either way.

How can he not know? He was sat in the car. He knows exactly what went wrong today. He just chooses not to discuss or acknowledge it and instead takes the passive agressive response of "I don't know <uncomfortable silence>"

Did you watch the race? in the first 3 laps Jenson pulled a 3 second lead, he was just the faster driver today and no amount of nut job conspiracy theories will change that. IMO even if Hamilton had taken T1 in the lead, JB would have still beaten him.

Mate im talking about over a whole season. Not just one race , I aint deluded just because im a Hamilton fan and he lost . Im regarding Button as the number one driver now . Why cant people see this ? flipping hell Deep down Lewis knows aswell .

And that explains Hamilton's "I have no clue" response when asked why he was slow, and Buttons "I love F1 atm,etc etc"

Lewis hasn't coped with it,he's had one to many ''mysterious slow'' races,Ham may have been a lot of things,but never slow.JB will destroy him if he doesn't get a grip.

What you call slow is basically being around Button's pace. He only fell behind because of getting Perez in-frond of him after the pit stops. The thing is that it doesn't matter how fast you are, you just can't go faster than a certain level(that Button can clearly keep, only mediocre drivers can't) because if you do, the tyres go off. So even if you try to muscle the car and pull fast laps to get seconds out of it and catch up is useless because the tyres can't be driven faster than a certain level or they will go off. So pulling fast laps and catching a guy that is a few second ahead like in the old days of Schumi is now pretty much impossible except if the guy in-frond can't pull the pace the tyres have and Button is good enough to pull at least that much, he isn't a mediocre driver. Hamilton has no more guns against Button than Button has against him except qualifying because in the race you can only drive at Button's pace. If you try to do more than that then your tyres are gone. So even if Lewis has the ability to drive a full race in qualifying pace or more laps than Button in the edge is still irrelevant because if he tries to do it he will only end up even slower since he will destroy his rubber. He can do nothing but drive similarly to Button and win or lose depending if his in-frond or Button is.

Without that safety car I shudder to think how far ahead Button would have got - that safety car saved Hamilton a lot of humiliation.
I've got to say based on today Button will be getting his 2nd title this season.

Button is maturing in to a great driver - I'm not comparing him to Senna but Senna didn't start winning titles till he was in his late twenties and early thirties, just like Button is now. It just shows that you can grow in to a great driver, it doesn't all have to come record breaking early like it has with Vettel and Co.

Very impressed with Button today and if I'm honest, sadly let down by Hamilton - I really hope he does better next race and this result doesn't knock his confidence because as Button has shown that car is monster and it can deliver incredible race pace to match the quali pace.

The next few races are key - if the McLaren remains the car to beat and Lewis underperforms I'd expect contract negotiations to become tense - and if the relationship turns sour I fear McLaren may be throwing away a WDC and/or WCC.

How can he not know? He was sat in the car. He knows exactly what went wrong today. He just chooses not to discuss or acknowledge it and instead takes the passive agressive response of "I don't know <uncomfortable silence>"

Yesterday he was the fastest man on the track, today he woke up and drove in the same way he always does but Button instantly formed a decent gap - he would have been trying to reel Button in but was unable, he might genuinely not know why he wasn't fast enough today.

Without that safety car I shudder to think how far ahead Button would have got - that safety car saved Hamilton a lot of humiliation. I've got to say based on today Button will be getting his 2nd title this season.

Button is maturing in to a great driver - I'm not comparing him to Senna but Senna didn't start winning titles till he was in his late twenties and early thirties, just like Button is now. It just shows that you can grow in to a great driver, it doesn't all have to come record breaking early like it has with Vettel and Co.

Very impressed with Button today and if I'm honest, sadly let down by Hamilton - I really hope he does better next race and this result doesn't knock his confidence because as Button has shown that car is monster and it can deliver incredible race pace to match the quali pace.

It shouldn't be under estimated how much the team values positive thinking

Exactly. Hamilton is so negative. I don't understand why people are attracted to him, his personality is a complete turn-off. I look forward to Kimi's grunts more than a Lewis interview.

BUT if he had got to the first corner first I believe he would have won the race so I don't think he has much reason to moan. Losing 2nd place was pure bad luck because of being stuck behind Perez. It was difficult to compare the pace in the 2nd half of the race because Vettel was inbetween. Having said that Button did seem to get heat in his tyres quicker, both at the start and the restart.

Sounds like Button had a stormer so congratulations to him. Hamilton's lack of pace is strange, especially if he fell behind Button so quickly, as sign it wasn't about him struggling with the tyres but was just slower than his team mate full stop today?

It is Lewis's lack of pace that is really worrying. Lewis never looked slow, not even when he had the poor car in 2009, but he looked slow today and in some races last year. I genuinely believe he does not know what the problem is. Maybe it's the tyres or the set-up or maybe it's psychological, maybe Lewis is just demoralised. Who knows. But it doesn't look good and I am concerned for his future in F1.

My suggestion would be this, if the guy running 2nd is struggling with his tires and clearly losing time not just to his teammate but the rest of the pack, and the lead driver is not pitting, let him pit.

i.e. if him pitting early is not a strategy to jump the leading driver but to hold position from the other drivers.

Be it JB or Lewis... I dont remember them holding up JB until Lewis pitted in races like Malaysia 2010 when he was struggling with tires.

Had they been running neck and neck with other cars, Lewis would have lost a mad number of positions.

This is not the first time, same strategy put Lewis down to 7th of so after his first pitstop in China. It especially disadvantages him cos he seems to generally uses up more of his tires early in the stint as we have all seen.

But like I said in other threads, main thing was Lewis lack of race pace. This looks likely down to race setup and running less wing than JB. He never had JB's pace throughout.

So while better strategy would have got him 2nd. Even a better start would probably not have stopped JB today.

That's exactly how i see it.. and from a WDC point of view the driver ahead with his Race engineer can damage more the other driver staying out few more laps(even if he loses time) just to ensure other cars will jump the guy behind after the pit.It's a very dangerous policy.

I have to say, Hamilton is being outpaced fairly regularly for the first time in his career. Button's race pace is amazing, and these tyres have a lot to do with his strength vs Hamilton. This didn't seem to start however till quite near the end of last year - at Suzuka and India Button beat Hamilton soundly, we're talking pound for pound, lap for lap - Button was just faster. Even a fair bit into 2011 people were wondering when would Button ever would finish ahead of Hamilton but for wacky races & loads of variables, well now it's a regular occurrence. Had Hamilton got a better start, and avoiding all the traffic on his first outlap he still would have been beaten by Button today one way or another, or if he had've won it would have been by the skin of his teeth, holding JB up for half the race.

As a Hamilton fan, this worries me much, much more than his error prone driving last year which can always be rectified. I noticed if i'm not mistaken that Hamilton had 4kph on Button in the speedtrap, I just wonder if his running less wing in the race really hurt him when weighed down with race fuel? I think there has to be a tough acceptance on the part of LH fans that in the race, JB is completely a match for Hamilton, certainly under these regs.

Yesterday he was the fastest man on the track, today he woke up and drove in the same way he always does but Button instantly formed a decent gap - he would have been trying to reel Button in but was unable, he might genuinely not know why he wasn't fast enough today.

Sure but that would translate to "I had a bad start, we'll have to see what happened there, I seemed to get bogged down in 2nd gear. And then I couldn't seem to do the lap times I know were possible so I'll need to sit with the team and see why that was. We were unlucky today with the safety car but these things happen. The car feels great which is the main thing, the team have done a great job and I'm looking forward to a great season. It's good to start on the podium."

See the difference? You can not know what happened yet still respond in a positive manner. Simply saying "I don't know" and forcing the person asking questions to try and force an answer out of you is just doing himself no favours.

The interview, including Buttons, is here. Compare their body language:

I re-watched it, and perhaps i'm being a little harsh, he did go into some detail about what went wrong, but I still think there is something going on there.

Without that safety car I shudder to think how far ahead Button would have got - that safety car saved Hamilton a lot of humiliation. I've got to say based on today Button will be getting his 2nd title this season.

Are you having a brain collapse? You shutter to think how far behind he would have been? They just pitted a lap before the first pit-stop one behind the other, that's exactly the difference he would have been. Basically a few seconds behind. I think when you pit stop like that is about 8-10 seconds behind when you get on track. So what the hell are you shudder to think?

Sure but that would translate to "I had a bad start, we'll have to see what happened there, I seemed to get bogged down in 2nd gear. And then I couldn't seem to do the lap times I know were possible so I'll need to sit with the team and see why that was. We were unlucky today with the safety car but these things happen. The car feels great which is the main thing, the team have done a great job and I'm looking forward to a great season. It's good to start on the podium."

See the difference? You can not know what happened yet still respond in a positive manner. Simply saying "I don't know" and forcing the person asking questions to try and force an answer out of you is just doing himself no favours.

The interview, including Buttons, is here. Compare their body language:

You're comparing the body language of someone who just won a race to someone who is disappointed they didn't convert a pole into a victory, well done.

You know that Hamilton knows exactly why he wasn't on the pace today, I don't know if he knows or not. The end.

Sure but that would translate to "I had a bad start, we'll have to see what happened there, I seemed to get bogged down in 2nd gear. And then I couldn't seem to do the lap times I know were possible so I'll need to sit with the team and see why that was. We were unlucky today with the safety car but these things happen. The car feels great which is the main thing, the team have done a great job and I'm looking forward to a great season. It's good to start on the podium."

See the difference? You can not know what happened yet still respond in a positive manner. Simply saying "I don't know" and forcing the person asking questions to try and force an answer out of you is just doing himself no favours.

The interview, including Buttons, is here. Compare their body language:

Lol, so you want him to speak better and you'll like him rather then bash, he had a disappointing afternoon, the team screwed up and you expect him to be jolly to meet your expectations of how someone should act

Sure but that would translate to "I had a bad start, we'll have to see what happened there, I seemed to get bogged down in 2nd gear. And then I couldn't seem to do the lap times I know were possible so I'll need to sit with the team and see why that was. We were unlucky today with the safety car but these things happen. The car feels great which is the main thing, the team have done a great job and I'm looking forward to a great season. It's good to start on the podium."

See the difference? You can not know what happened yet still respond in a positive manner. Simply saying "I don't know" and forcing the person asking questions to try and force an answer out of you is just doing himself no favours.

The interview, including Buttons, is here. Compare their body language:

I re-watched it, and perhaps i'm being a little harsh, he did go into some detail about what went wrong, but I still think there is something going on there.

What you call slow is basically being around Button's pace. He only fell behind because of getting Perez in-frond of him after the pit stops. The thing is that it doesn't matter how fast you are, you just can't go faster than a certain level(that Button can clearly keep, only mediocre drivers can't) because if you do, the tyres go off. So even if you try to muscle the car and pull fast laps to get seconds out of it and catch up is useless because the tyres can't be driven faster than a certain level or they will go off. So pulling fast laps and catching a guy that is a few second ahead like in the old days of Schumi is now pretty much impossible except if the guy in-frond can't pull the pace the tyres have and Button is good enough to pull at least that much, he isn't a mediocre driver. Hamilton has no more guns against Button than Button has against him except qualifying because in the race you can only drive at Button's pace. If you try to do more than that then your tyres are gone. So even if Lewis has the ability to drive a full race in qualifying pace or more laps than Button in the edge is still irrelevant because if he tries to do it he will only end up even slower since he will destroy his rubber. He can do nothing but drive similarly to Button and win or lose depending if his in-frond or Button is.

We agree I was pointing LH hasn't coped with the new system as well,thus he seems clueless.

I have to say, Hamilton is being outpaced fairly regularly for the first time in his career. Button's race pace is amazing, and these tyres have a lot to do with his strength vs Hamilton. This didn't seem to start however till quite near the end of last year - at Suzuka and India Button beat Hamilton soundly, we're talking pound for pound, lap for lap - Button was just faster. Even a fair bit into 2011 people were wondering when would Button ever would finish ahead of Hamilton but for wacky races & loads of variables, well now it's a regular occurrence. Had Hamilton got a better start, and avoiding all the traffic on his first outlap he still would have been beaten by Button today one way or another, or if he had've won it would have been by the skin of his teeth, holding JB up for half the race.

As a Hamilton fan, this worries me much, much more than his error prone driving last year which can always be rectified. I noticed if i'm not mistaken that Hamilton had 4kph on Button in the speedtrap, I just wonder if his running less wing in the race really hurt him when weighed down with race fuel? I think there has to be a tough acceptance on the part of LH fans that in the race, JB is completely a match for Hamilton, certainly under these regs.

So depressed

I totally agree . Under these current regs Lewis aint winning shit This year is gonna be another emotional rollercoaster for us fans. Bad times indeed

It is Lewis's lack of pace that is really worrying. Lewis never looked slow, not even when he had the poor car in 2009, but he looked slow today

He didn't look slow to me, he looked like he had similar pace to Button.

There are 3 things that affected his pace:1. Losing track position at the first corner and therefore not being in clean air.2. Being stuck behind Perez after the first stop which dropped him from about 4 secs to 10 secs behind.3. Being behind Vettel for the 2nd half of the race.

Jenson was on it today, Lewis had ok pace - He was pulling Jenson in when they switched to the medium tyres but then Jenson settled down and increased the gap again -

1 -0 to JB and deserved, Lewis was not with it today which i think was a bit down to not getting a good race setup.

Lewis was unlucky with the pitstops, that was strange, his tyres we're going off and the team didn't pit him until after JB stopped - i know JB had first option but this needs to be looked at - Lewis was unlucky today but i don't think the win was ever there with
JB on the pace like he was. he loves this track and i knew yesterday after he nearly beat Lewis in Quali that he would be on it.

Onto the next race where i think Lewis will grab pole again but for the race i have no idea

I think that their relative pace was not as different as the clean air, traffic, tyre deg and pitstop made it seem. For alot of the race jenson was not much faster than Lewis, it was just at certain times when the gap was extended alot.
Of course we don't know who was pushing how much at what time, but this is the impression I got.
Anyhow, I do agree that Jenson had faster race pace at this particular track.

Considering that Lewis was faster in qualifying (out and out one lap pace) but then seemed slower in the race means that one of the following variables was causing Lewis' to lose relative pace to Jenson from Qually to the Race:

1) In the beginning parts of the race Jenson got infront of Lewis due to the bad start, this gave clean air. In the first stint Jenson was only slightly faster than Lewis, which I think to be caused by the difference of clean and dirty air.

2) At the end of first and second stints Lewis lost quite a few seconds of time to Jenson, this is most likely due to tyre degredation- this was made worse by the late pitstop, but nonetheless Jenson's tyres seemed to last longer than Lewis'. Again the dirty air deficiet could have had a slight affect on the relative tyre degredation.

3) On the second stint Lewis was stuck behind Perez which clearly lost him alot of time.

4) I'm not too sure about the setup myself, but many posters are talking about the difference in wing angle between Jenson and Lewis that may have effected the relative pace between Qually and the Race.

It does seem though that Jenson and Lewis are really close in terms of performance now.
Whatever the case, if indeed there is a case, we're in for a great fight for the championship this year!

The gap was already a huge 10 seconds - do you not think Button would have added to that? If not for the safety you'd be looking at 15 to 20 come the end of the race - that's huge given both are top drivers in the same car.

The gap was already a huge 10 seconds - do you not think Button would have added to that? If not for the safety you'd be looking at 15 to 20 come the end of the race - that's huge given both are top drivers in the same car.

The gap was about 3.5 seconds before they pitted - then LH was stuck behind a slower car. In clear air Button was more or less matching LH's pace once he pulled out a gap - there's no reason to think he'd have done much more than that because there was no point in doing more than that - and potentially plenty to lose if another SC appeared.